Powell's leaving FCC won't ease our crankiness

Tim Goodman

Published
4:00 am PST, Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Everything we know we learned from television:

-- If the rumors are true and there's a sex tape floating around featuring "Trading Spaces" host Paige Davis, then she is hereby forgiven for being the face of America's most vile and damaging design show. "Trading Spaces" dumped her, proving once again that it knows nothing about form following function.

-- Michael Powell, whose legacy beyond being a certain someone's famous son stands at misinterpreting the mandate of the FCC, allowing media conglomeration and playing morality cop for the entire country, is stepping down. We'd like to think that your letters -- more than 500 that we know of -- had a little something to do with it. Maybe Janet Jackson will pull that gold medallion out of her nipple and pin it on his collar when he leaves.

-- The Oscars, a notorious bore-fest of the ages, finally has given the reins to searing comic Chris Rock. This is new school. Can't wait for the doors to open. This, despite a plethora of not-exactly-great films.

-- How big of CBS to step up after the fact and declare that future spousal abuse on "The Amazing Race" will not be tolerated. Anyone who watches this fine reality program (how often do you see those words together?), knows that annoying Jonathan shoved annoying Victoria and bonked her head with a car trunk lid. There was also much yelling. CBS just let it go. No intervention. But after hordes of fans and advocacy groups raised objections to televised spousal abuse, word came down that, hey, in the future, we won't tolerate this. Fine print: Unless our ratings stink and we're too busy trying to hire Katie Couric to know what two people are doing as they race around the globe.

-- You know, the more we think about this, Paige Davis was merely the poster girl for hideous, misguided and offensive interior decoration and hapless alterations to architecture. She was a pawn of TLC. We're sure that they misappropriated her image in order to sell the show. We're also confident that her belief in modernism is as firm as her dancer's body. Free Paige! Oh, you've already dumped her. Well, fine. She'll be happier on the Internet anyway.

-- Stars are already wound too tight at the Oscars. How badly are they going to need Xanax when Chris Rock makes the first joke about plastic surgery?

-- You think Michael Powell looked around and said, "Well, I've mucked up just about everything I can. Time to move on?"

-- When Dan Rather steps down -- hey, watch that door -- CBS is likely to replace him with not one, but two and God only knows, three, people. Apparently, being in the ratings Dumpster has prompted all kinds of ideas. There's even the notion that Jon Stewart, already employed in the Viacom family, might add some commentary. Why not just run MTV News at this point? Oh, you mean you didn't get that subtle, we-need-to-get-younger vibe?

-- This wasn't meant to be an ongoing screed against CBS, but the network did just cancel "Center of the Universe," the John Goodman "comedy" that, by rights, should never have been on the air. The lingering question is this: If you have a sitcom that doesn't produce a single laugh in its entire existence, does it mean that your executives are actually watching HBO instead?

-- What is it with religious conservatives and children's television? Remember when Jerry Falwell was all upset about allegedly gay Teletubbies? Now another group, Focus on the Family, is suggesting that SpongeBob SquarePants might be gay, or is at the least promoting gay acceptance through his actions. You know, like holding hands with other male cartoon characters. And here we thought that the dark ages of outing the likes of Bert and Ernie and Peppermint Patty and Robin and Barney were over. Apparently not.

(Oh, dude -- Barney. Totally gay. And it's not just the purple.)

Maybe Focus on the Family ought to focus on something truly vile, like daytime talk shows or televangelist hucksters or the kind of people who have enough time on their hands that they can find homosexual tendencies in an animated sponge. Focus on your own family, pal. Besides, Michael Powell is quitting, or didn't you hear. Witch hunts are sooooo 2004.

-- It can't possibly be true that Katie Couric is in the running to replace Dan Rather, can it? Wouldn't that be, like the Seventh Sign or something? If we want our news delivered by Beelzebub, we'll go to Fox, thank you very much.

-- You know, if Elisabeth Rohm's character on "Law & Order" can announce her lesbianism as an afterthought, maybe SpongeBob really is gay. Shame on Dick Wolf -- who is on record a thousand times over as saying he never deals with his characters' personal lives because the show is about their work, period -- for tossing that line in. It was a cheap stunt by "Law & Order," but here's why it didn't work: Anyone who knows anything about gay people knows that no lesbian could ever be that bad of an actress.

-- If Focus on the Family really wanted to safeguard children's programming it would tell "Dora the Explorer" to shut the hell up. That's one loud kid. And another thing -- there's way too much whining on "Caillou."

-- At what point does another item about Paige Davis indicate we might have a poster of her in our room?

-- Donald Trump is all cockily dismissive of the notion that Martha Stewart could replace him on "The Apprentice." Listen, Donny, Martha could cut your assets off and bake them in a pie before you knew what was missing. Don't even imagine that you could compete with her.

-- Germaine Greer can get as intellectually righteous as she wishes about her tenure on the UK's "Celebrity Big Brother," but the fact is she temporarily took leave of her senses and agreed to go on the show. Which just proves one thing: Sometimes you're not as clever as your bio says you are.

-- Been watching a whole lot of "Little Bear" lately. A fantastic show. If you're Little Bear, you're super-positive about life, have great adventures every day and then Mother Bear bakes you a chocolate cake. Where do we get that life?

-- We're 98 percent positive that you don't need to be told this, but yes, the Cranky Pants are on and they're pulling in the crotch like a Mother (Bear).

-- Bring us the head of Paige Davis.

-- The High Fives: 1. Wearing the Cranky Pants like a badge of honor because, let's face it, we're just not as happy as Little Bear. 2. "Arrested Development." 3. Chris Rock. 4. Lesbians. 5. Michael Powell pursuing other options -- out of our living room.